470 
Fishery Bulletin 95(3), 1997 
NANTUCKET 
SOUND 
- km 
7WM 
that the distance traveled by legal-size nonovigerous 
females was significantly shorter than that of all 
other groups except sublegal females. 
Only fourteen of the returned lobsters molted while 
at large. These were distributed among most of the 
lobster classes. Sample size was insufficient to as- 
sess effects of molting on movement. 
The relatively long mean distances traveled by 
sublegal male and female lobster groups (22.5 km 
and 17.0 km, respectively) were likely due to their 
number of days at large being, on average, consider- 
Release Station 1 
Release Station 2 
Release Station 3 
Provincetown 
Truro 
Easthain 
Recapture Sites troni Station 1 
Recapture Sites from Station 2 
Recapture Sites from Station 3 
Statute Miles 
34-67 
40 
37 ' 
00 ' 
40 
15-70 
Figure 2 
Tagged American lobster, Homarus americanus , release stations and return locations off the 
coast of Massachusetts. Some inshore recapture sites represent multiple recaptures. 
ably greater than the number of days at large for 
other lobster groups (Table 3A). The mean time at 
large was less for legal-size females with and with- 
out external eggs than for legal-size males and 
sublegal males and females. 
Lobster “velocities” greater than 3 km/day were 
not exhibited by individual sublegal males or sublegal 
females. However, these rates were calculated for the 
larger lobsters, including 6.6% of legal-size males, 
1.1% of legal-size nonovigerous females, 7.6% of fe- 
males with immature eggs, and 4.2% of females with 
ripe eggs. Females with imma- 
ture and ripe eggs exhibited 
greatest mean velocities (1.55 
and 0.95 km/day, respectively, 
Table 3A). 
Because variability in days 
at large among classes of lob- 
ster could affect comparisons 
of distance traveled, standard- 
ization was warranted. An ad- 
ditional data analysis was con- 
ducted which was limited to 
lobsters at large < 200 days 
(Table 3B). This eliminated 
potential misleading recapture 
locations that could occur af- 
ter circuitous (homing) move- 
ment patterns, i.e. those from 
lobsters which, after tagging, 
may move offshore and return 
inshore in the following year, 
and subsequent years. Be- 
cause lobsters were tagged and 
released in the months of June 
through August, a 200-day 
limit was considered reason- 
able to avoid spring recaptures 
in our data treatments. 
Analysis of these “standard- 
ized” data reaffirmed that le- 
gal-size females with ripe ex- 
ternal eggs exhibited the great- 
est mean distance traveled, 25.6 
km, followed by females with 
immature external eggs, 24.2 
km. Legal-size males ranked 
third, with a mean of 16 km; 
nonovigerous females and 
sublegal females and males 
averaged 12.2 km, 13.1 km, 
and 14.2 km, respectively. 
Analysis of variance of log- 
transformed distance data in- 
dicated that there were signifi- 
